Half Dome has fallen.

Tanner James wrote:

If you feel so inclined and as passionate about charity and giving back as expressed here a small donation goes a long way with us at Crux! Will keep an eye out for your contribution.

https://cruxwilderness.org/

Well I have been pretty amazed by this thread.  I wish I could say I have been entertained, but appalled might be a better word. It's hard to turn away.

But this last couple of pages I have learned something.  I still climb quite a bit but I don't follow Instagram or the magazines, etc.  So I had no idea who Tanner James was except that he is a climber guy whose posts I sometimes see on MP and typically like. When he posted that he was going to Snake Dike to pull bolts, I privately sent him a message offering to send funds for his gas money. He thanked me but declined the offer.

Now I have come to understand that he is to some degree a well known climber and is involved with a non-profit that supports Veterans.  I was happy to see the link to send my support to that. If all the other many people who want to see the bolts pulled on a legacy alpine Grade III route (by no definition a beginner route whatever the rating), but who cannot get there to participate in person, will contribute to this Veteran's nonprofit, something good will come out of this thread.

Jack Johnson wrote:

To CH — Is it really that hard to grasp? I don’t think the route needs more bolts, and I don’t care enough personally to modify the route or make a stink either way — but I can still empathize with people trying to reduce accidents, misguided or not. I’m not defending Sloan’s actions, I’m defending the validity of a viewpoint in favor of safety, even if that’s not my view. And I think it’s cooler — as a pro — to take up the side of safety, at least as it relates to entry-level climbs and climbers, even if it’s not popular. Again, just my opinion.

Still waiting on you or anyone to show which accidents would have been prevented by more bolts. Already been explained several times over here that the last several "big" incidents on SD were climber error, and had little/nothing to do with bolts. So yes, it's hard to grasp a person who talks about things that don't exist (accidents that have never happened b/c of a lack of bolts).

Anyway, I’ve made my point and I’ll leave it there. Been fun.

Your point seemed to be to pick a bone with one particular person, when there's a boatload of us who 1) are actively are engaged in the same correction process, 2) actively share the same viewpoint, or 3) adhere to a similar code of ethics, which you seem to struggle to comprehend the importance of.

side note, I once met a young valley monkey who had moved to the valley at 19, was working for aramark as a desk clerk at night, and climbing his ass off as much as possible...at least on fixed lines and with other people, b/c he had something like 4 cams to his name. I had recently been gifted a couple of UL 0.4 cams, so I gave him one, NWT. He was very appreciative and was kind enough to not make me feel bad by mentioning that some random guy named tanner had given him a full rack earlier that week, as apparently tanner had heard he was a San Diego kid and was new to the valley and had no gear. Made my gift pale in comparison but certainly showed me what kind of person that tanner guy was. Going to guess only a handful of people knew about these gifts until this thread. Thanks for hitting the road, Jack...it's prob your best option, considering how far in your mouth that foot is jammed. 

What is being debated in large part is the future of our sport and in particular, the future of certified classic rock climbs mostly put up in the Golden Age of American Rock Climbing. 

We should proceed very carefully to a preserve their essential original character with an eye to the route's future, not to bolt any of them into vanilla mediocrity and create commodities for rapid consumption to then be discarded from our memories like the wrapper of Tuesday's Chik-Fil-A.

The end result of Sloan's "Modern Classic" would be a route with as much meaning as Wednesday's fresh course setting in the corner of the gym with a better view. Consume when new, then discard as the grease and chalk pile up. Then go looking for the next "comfortized" course, illegally drilled into an acceptable level for the most minimal skill standard, to ruin again for the future. It is shortsighted.

This is not about any egos or memories of the past. It's about protecting an experience for future climbers on a classic route. For those wanting more bolts on established classics you don't have to understand why those with more experience disagree because you simply do not have the experience to grasp the evolution of your own climbing that will take place.  Sorry (not sorry) it's true. You will regret making things too easy for yourself or you will find that climbing is simply not for you. Why? Because Climbing is not a destination where once your bucket list is complete you "have done climbing". It is a path and how you take that path is where the real meaning is to be found. Don't take shortcuts on the Path because you will miss the countless miracles along the way and opportunity to be surprised by yourself. If the most difficult path is not for you, don't take it from others while you figure that out.

The onus is on the "more bolts" crowd to prove that it creates greater safety. I have seen no evidence that is so. A sparse protection scheme is self-regulating so that usually only those with the ability attempt a route. All more bolts do is create more traffic until you have the Half Dome Cables, Westside version.

We can also create more moderate and well protected routes for the new to climbing outdoors/traditional routes to cut their chops on until they are ready and fit enough to be up for the mental challenge of many classics. I was again in Yosemite this last weekend and saw moderate line after moderate line that could be added to give new climbers more than enough opportunity to train their game on. 

Being more experienced route developers, we can add well protected climbs for newbies and work with FAs to perhaps retro-bolt some obscurities. The hope is after doing those the newbies will look for greater challenges on the classics and then appreciate that they still exist.

We must preserve what is truly unique about our sport. Not in every case, but certainly in the most important cases.

How do we decide which to save? Simple, if it has thousands of ascents as is, it's not broken and doesn't have to be "fixed".

John Tuttle wrote:

The onus is on the "more bolts" crowd to prove that it creates greater safety. I have seen no evidence that is so. All more bolts do is create more traffic until you have the Half Dome Cables, westside version.

How do we decide which to save? Simple, if it has thousands of ascents as is, it's not broken and doesn't have to be fixed.

Even IF it made it safer, so what? Risk is inherent in trad climbing. The FA had fifty years to go back and fix it, or request someone else do it. They didn’t, and meanwhile, likely ten thousand people or more climbed it without a problem. Leave it alone. 

Tony Danza wrote:

Even IF it made it safer, so what? Risk is inherent in trad climbing. The FA had fifty years to go back and fix it, or request someone else do it. They didn’t, and meanwhile, likely ten thousand people or more climbed it without a problem. Leave it alone. 

Like I said: If it has many, many accents, it's not something that needs to be fixed.

If it's ie 5.7X and never getting climbed, it's broken, imo. The alternative is apparently the Sloanificattion of classics as the crew transitioning from Gym to Outside simply does not have that much to climb on in YNP. They will motivate the Sloans of the world to ruin classics.

John Tuttle wrote:

Like I said: if it has many many accents, it's not something that needs to be fixed.

If it's ie 5.7x and never getting climbed, it's broken, imo. The alternative is apparently the Sloanificattion of classics.

Agree 100%. If ten people a year climbed snake dike, I’d be a lot more ok with all this. But it has more ticks here than Royal arches, so people saying the runouts are gatekeeping is hilarious. 

John Tuttle wrote: The alternative is apparently the Sloanificattion of classics.

I had to look that word up: 

sloan·i·fi·ca·tion /ˌsloʊnɪfɪˈkeɪʃən/

sloan·i·fy /ˈsloʊnɪˌfaɪ/ (verb)

1. To achieve a state of aggressive, cringeworthy notoriety by performing an act of pure, unadulterated narcissism. Seeking fame not through talent or achievement, but through self-aggrandizing and thoroughly lame behavior.

• Example: "He completely sloanified the entire town hall meeting by grabbing the microphone just to announce his new lifestyle blog."

2. To systematically strip the soul, character, and uniqueness out of a masterpiece, leaving it aggressively bland and corporate.

• Example: "That dickhead sloanified a classic climbing route, making it just another clip-up."

3. To commit an act of public nuisance that a population universally despises, solely to satisfy your own microscopic ego or personal greed.

• Example: "In Paris today, a vandal sloanified the Mona Lisa by painting a mustache on it and asking nearby museum goers for money for his actions."

I have received word that up to the first bolt on P2, has been removed. 

The snake should have it's fangs again, by this weekend. 

Tony Danza wrote:

Agree 100%. If ten people a year climbed snake dike, I’d be a lot more ok with all this. But it has more ticks here than Royal arches, so people saying the runouts are gatekeeping is hilarious. 

Ah, now, there is a form of gatekeeping going on here. :)

Many say they would not get on Snake Dike pre-Sloanification - I believe them.  And many who have been on it pre-Sloanification - and who have seen the crowds - believe that more bolts will bring more people to climb it - which I also believe.

Perhaps "we" should lean into that gatekeeping.  There are some good videos on YouTube about Snake Dike with labels like "Extremely Dangerous" and "This is Dumb".  Maybe link those on the route description itself on MP?  Or, less alarmist, just link the one by Grahm the Overstoker titled "Climbing Snake Dike 5.7 on Half Dome"?

Sloan stopped by the mountain shop to ask "been selling a lot of snake dike topos" 

I informed him that up to P2 has been chopped, and I will be going up with some others to finish it off this weekend. I also explained that what he is doing is not OK. 

He made a snide comment along the lines of "I'll be in better shape than you after I run back up there to put them back" as he cowardly scurried out of the shop so I couldn't respond. 

Lolol. 

As I brought up before, we should not chop any more of his bolts, but cut them with bolt cutters to minimize the damage he is going to do to the route. 

Aren’t they buttonheads? If so, won’t a tuning fork (and careful patching) do the job?

Russ Bangert wrote:

Sloan stopped by the mountain shop to ask "been selling a lot of snake dike topos" 

I informed him that up to P2 has been chopped, and I will be going up with some others to finish it off this weekend. I also explained that what he is doing is not OK. 

He made a snide comment along the lines of "I'll be in better shape than you after I run back up there to put them back" 

Lolol. 

As I brought up before, we should not chop any more of his bolts, but cut them with bolt cutters to minimize the damage he is going to do to the route. 

Yep, it was a money making opp for Sloan from the get go.   

Which mountain shop are you at, Russ?

I work in The Mountain Shop, the little gear shop here in Curry Village. 

Russ Bangert wrote:

Sloan stopped by the mountain shop to ask "been selling a lot of snake dike topos" 

I informed him that up to P2 has been chopped, and I will be going up with some others to finish it off this weekend. I also explained that what he is doing is not OK. 

He made a snide comment along the lines of "I'll be in better shape than you after I run back up there to put them back" 

Lolol. 

As I brought up before, we should not chop any more of his bolts, but cut them with bolt cutters to minimize the damage he is going to do to the route. 

Get him on video saying shit like that. The more we can publicly condemn him, the better the chance that he’ll stop this shit. At the very least it might make someone think twice about buying anything from him.

Russ Bangert wrote:

I work in The Mountain Shop, the little gear shop here in Curry Village. 

I would talk to the buyers (merchandizers) at the Mountain Shop and suggest they stop buying guides from someone who is illegally bolting in the Valley and illegally bolting to promote his guides.

I sure saw a pile of them for sale there the last time I was in.

Russ Bangert wrote:

Sloan stopped by the mountain shop to ask "been selling a lot of snake dike topos" 

I informed him that up to P2 has been chopped, and I will be going up with some others to finish it off this weekend. I also explained that what  he is doing is not OK. 

He made a snide comment along the lines of "I'll be in better shape than you after I run back up there to put them back" 

Lolol. 

As I brought up before, we should not chop any more of his bolts, but cut them with bolt cutters to minimize the damage he is going to do to the route. 

Sigh, here we go.

Russ Bangert wrote:

Sloan stopped by the mountain shop to ask "been selling a lot of snake dike topos" 

I informed him that up to P2 has been chopped, and I will be going up with some others to finish it off this weekend. I also explained that what he is doing is not OK. 

He made a snide comment along the lines of "I'll be in better shape than you after I run back up there to put them back" 

Lolol. 

As I brought up before, we should not chop any more of his bolts, but cut them with bolt cutters to minimize the damage he is going to do to the route. 

I think climbers need to make a concerted effort to take some videos of Sloan power drilling in Yosemite. 

Russ Bangert wrote:

As I brought up before, we should not chop any more of his bolts, but cut them with bolt cutters to minimize the damage he is going to do to the route. 

Thanks for helping on this Russ.

I was thinking a similar thing. 

The first time they are removed do it right, pull them, patch the holes. And if he again Sloanifies the route use bolts cutters on the hangers and leave the mess there at least until it's clear he got the message and doesn't try it again. No sense it putting a lot of work into doing it right, if he's just going to do it again. Let climbers see the results of his actions. I read that not only did he use button heads, but he glued them in. Making it as difficult as possible to cleanly remove them. If true, he's a fucking asshole.

Sloan is the one starting a bolt war. If there's a mess on the route it's HIS fault. 

I'm an environmentalist (I care about the environment) with experience in resource management, environmental impacts, and environmental quality acts. A lot of people put a lot of emphasis on damage to the rock (which should be minimized) but often it's not that big a deal. A few holes, or surface damage, to the side of the route, or even chopped hangers temporarily next to a route, isn't a significant impact. The only people seeing that is climbers, and it's a visual impact. It usually doesn't cause a biological impact. Chipping holds however can be a huge impact because it's impacts a resource than many other climbers get a lot of value from. Or even Sloanifying a route can cause a significant impact because you are changing nature of the route for other climbers, to their detriment, without their input.

Thank you for clarifying, Glowering.  I agree.  Do it right at first.  When any more new bolts are added, use bolt cutters and leave the mess until safe to finally clean.

Put me on the list of folks interested in helping with this.  My getting there would take some planning.  Still, I think this is that important.

If more bolts are added, regardless if higher up or re-bolting what was removed It should be documented. Then I would suggest the community start petition (charge.org?) asking all shops to no longer purchase any of Sloans books. Sell what they have as those have been purchased but no longer purchase any future copies.

Note: I have already been into one of my local shops and have made that request. I plan to visit another with the same request. As such, some in the community are already acting. 

I think at this point, enough is enough we as a community need to take a stance. Sloan is no longer part of the community.